TRIKONASANA

TRIANGLE POSE

Benefits:

  • Strengthens legs, knees, and ankles
  • Stretches the hamstrings
  • Opens the hips
  • Can relieve low back tightness and neck strain
  • Opens the chest as well as the heart
  • Grounds you to the earth while aspiring upward

Questions about this pose?

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Prep Poses:

Supta Padangusthana >

Parshva Supta Padangusthasana >

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Counterbalancing Poses:

Adho Mukha Svanasana >

Setu Bandha >

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Contraindications:

Hip Replacement

Hamstring tears at the origin

FINDING THE POSE:

Trikonasana is a standing pose. Standing poses strengthen the legs, align the hips, and help to bring a sense of grounding. They build confidence and stability, increase stamina, and are the foundation of the brain-body connection.

1.

Stand with your feet 3 ½ to 4 feet apart with toes facing forward. Turn the left foot in 15° and the right leg out to 90° so that the knees are pointing at 90° angle to each other. Align your feet so the front heel bisects the rear arch.

2.

Press the four corners of the feet into the floor and lift the inner and outer arches up. Contract your quadriceps completely without hyperextending the knees.

3.

Lift the bottom of your belly and reach out through your arms. Let your hips be catty-cornered to the right to assist with the external rotation of the right leg.

4.

Exhaling, tilt your pelvis to the right, lengthen your right side waist and bring your hand down to the floor or a block. Reach for the ceiling with your top arm.

5.

Keep contracting the quadriceps. Lift the belly to lengthen the spine away from the pelvis. Keep the back right heel, center of the right kneecap, and the right sitting bone in the same plane with your spine over your right leg.

6.

Lift your left hipbone (ASIS) up and away from your inner right heel and press the inner right heel into the ground, away from the left ASIS. Feel opening across your pelvis and in the inner right thigh.

7.

Keep the side waists long, lift your belly, and bring the bottom ribs forward and the top ribs back. Draw your shoulder blades down your back and reach for the ceiling and the floor with your hands. Hold for at least three breaths, keeping your breath smooth and even and your eyes soft.

8.

Inhaling, come out of the pose by lifting your upper body and retracing your steps going in. Change sides.